TWO MISSISSIPPI RESIDENTS AND ONE FLORIDA RESIDENT  PLEAD GUILTY TO KATRINA DEBRIS REMOVAL FRAUD

GULFPORT, Miss. - Allan Kitto, Clinton K. Miller, and Lauren Robertson pled guilty in U.S. District Court to charges of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States involving the creation and submission of  false debris removal load slips in the amount of $716,677.00, U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton of the Southern District of Mississippi announced today.           

Allan Kitto, of Dundee, Florida, owned and operated J.A.K. DC&ER, Inc., a debris
removal contracting company working as a sub-contractor in Pearl River County, Mississippi.  Clinton K. Miller, of Carrier Mississippi, and Lauren Robertson, of Picayune Mississippi, worked for a debris removal monitoring company operating in  Pearl River County, Mississippi.

            As a part of the conspiracy, Robertson signed false debris load slips misrepresenting that
debris was loaded onto trucks on the roadway when Robertson was not present at the loading site and, in most instances, created and signed the false load slips at her residence.   The false debris load slips misrepresented that certain trucks, belonging to and under the control of  Kitto and identified by a certain number, were hauling loads of debris at a time when the trucks identified on the debris load slips were not in operation on the roadway or at the dump site reflected on the load slips.   The false debris load slips misrepresented that loads of debris were delivered to a designated dump site in Pearl River County, Mississippi when, in truth and fact, no debris was delivered and dumped at the dump site. 

            Miller collected the false load slips from his co-conspirators and submitted those false load slips to the debris monitoring company who would, in turn, submit the false load slips to the prime contractor for payment to Kitto.  Kitto also admitted that, in an effort to conceal the conspiracy, he would deposit the funds obtained through the conspiracy into a bank account opened in the name of one of his employees, and then write a check to an unindicted co-conspirator who would cash the check and give the cash to Kitto and Miller.   Miller would then pay Robertson for completing and signing the false load slips along with an extra amount of  “hush money”.

            United States Attorney Lampton praised the work of the investigators in this case.
“My office and federal law enforcement will continue a relentless pursuit of people who have defrauded the tax payers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  We will continue to devote available resources to investigating and prosecuting both individual assistance fraud cases and, increasingly, large dollar contract fraud cases.  The tax payers of this country deserve nothing less,” said Lampton.

            The indictment in this case came as a result of a joint investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  The maximum penalty for Conspiracy to Defraud the United States is 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.  The defendants will be sentenced on May 7, 2007 at 9:00 a.m. in U.S. District Court in Gulfport.